1. Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates generally to an electronic device, and more particularly, to a beamforming control method and an electronic device for controlling beamforming.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the rapid growth of the smart phone market, various electronic devices are equipped with all or some of the features of the smart phone.
As the multimedia capabilities of the smart phone have been enhanced, multiple microphones may be mounted in the device. For example, two or more microphones may be mounted in the smart phone. By using these multiple microphones, the user may use multiple recording techniques in the smart phone.
Beamforming, which is based on multiple microphones, is configured for determining a sound receiving range for receiving a sound in a specific direction from an electronic device.
Generally, beamforming technology having a fixed sound receiving range is widely used, and the smart phone may record (or output) the sound in a predetermined range having the directional characteristics, and the smart phone may exclude the sound received in the other ranges from the recording (or the outputting). Examples of the fixed-beamforming technology may include minimum variance distortionless response (MVDR) and linearly constrained minimum variance (LCMV) methods, and when a beam is formed (or generated), the beamforming direction may be typically configured in a radial manner on the basis of the front (0°-direction) or rear (180°-direction) of the electronic device. For example, depending on the number of multiple microphones, the radial width may be narrower and/or the performance of the electronic device may be improved.
On the other hand, the location of a speaker (or a talker) may be tracked using direction-of-arrival (DOA) technology, which is for detecting the direction in which waves arrive from any one point, using multiple microphone sensors; this sensor configuration is referred to as a sensor array, and is presently used in conjunction with beamforming technology for estimating a signal in a predetermined direction.
As described above, the fixed-beamforming technology may control the beamforming direction during use thereof, and may ensure the stable performance.
However, the fixed-beamforming technology may be disadvantageous in that the direction of a beam (e.g., the direction of beamforming, or the direction of a received sound) is fixed. In order to perform beamforming for a speaker moving in an arbitrary direction, it is necessary to use an adaptive filter, or to find a beamformer filter in real time and apply the beamformer filter to each of received signals, causing an increase in the computation and the power consumption. For the adaptive beamforming technology based on the adaptive filter, its physical implementation is not easy, and the filter adaptation may not operate normally in the actual beamforming environment.
In a case where the orientation of the fixed beamformer is changed in real time, the amount of required computation may be very large, resulting in the difficulty of its real-time implementation. For example, the performance of beamforming tracking for a fast-moving speaker may not be guaranteed.
The above information is presented as background information only to assist with an understanding of the present disclosure. No determination has been made, and no assertion is made, as to whether any of the above might be applicable as prior art with regard to the present disclosure.